View full sizeChris Granger, The Times-PicayuneThe New Orleans Public Belt Railroad used two 1920s-era railroad cars -- which it acquired and restored for about $2 million -- to host boozy catered parties for prospective clients, commissioners and local charities.

Indeed, Landrieu cited the policy first among the findings in a draft report by the state legislative auditor that he found "particularly disturbing."

So perhaps it's no surprise that reporters this week received anonymously delivered Public Belt records showing that when Landrieu was lieutenant governor, his office booked one of the Pullman cars.

But it turns out the ride, scheduled for Oct. 29, 2009, never happened.

Checked last week, the railroad's electronic Pullman calendar shows the date as blank. But a hand-written calendar kept by Antoine Camenzuli, the railroad staffer who maintains the cars, shows the Landrieu booking, along with a note of cancellation.

"I just remember taking the instruction to book it, and then I remember taking the instruction to cancel it," Camenzuli said, adding that then-General Manager Jim Bridger, who quit recently amid revelations of rampant spending, made both calls.

Camenzuli said he typed the reservation into a calendar program that is saved on a shared drive. When the event was canned, he erased it. The record sent to reporters was apparently printed out before that happened.

Interim General Manager John Morrow said he didn't know who might have looked at the calendar before the booking was rescinded, adding that dozens of Public Belt employees had easy access.

Deputy Mayor Emily Sneed Arata, who served as Landrieu's deputy chief of staff in the lieutenant governor's office, said the canceled reservation was made by an event planner hired to help set up the World Cultural Economic Forum, an international conference that Landrieu hosted over the last weekend of October 2009. The train ride was canceled in favor of a reception at Tulane University President Scott Cowen's home, she said.

"I don't think that the lieutenant governor ever knew that the Pullman car was ever reserved by one of the event planners," she said. "We never saw a list of where they had in mind. It was just a broad concept that was pitched and was rejected."

The board suspended the use of the cars last month after receiving an opinion from Attorney General James "Buddy" Caldwell, who said the agency can allow "limited short-term uses" of the cars, "provided it obtains in return a value or benefit that is commensurate with such use."